


Cold Comfort for Change

by Radioheading



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Drama & Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, M/M, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:18:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radioheading/pseuds/Radioheading
Summary: Changmin dies just before his 18th birthday. But life isn't over yet, not for him, or the person he's assigned to watch over, Park Yoochun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is some of my oldest fanfiction~This is all moved from LJ, so if it seems familiar, you might've read it before.

Title: Cold Comfort for Change  
Pairing: Changmin/Yoochun  
Rating:PG  
Author: Radioheading  
Genre: Romance, supernatural, angst  
Chapters: Part one of a Two-shot.  
Summary: Changmin dies just before his 18th birthday. But life isn't over yet, not for him, or the person he's assigned to watch over, Park Yoochun.

 

When Changmin wakes up, it's to warmth that bathes on his skin, sun stroking gold fingers across tired cheeks. He's on a blanket, in the middle of a field and someone sits next to him, but all he can see is legs, folded Indian-style.

 

“Hey,” the guy says, looking down at him. He squints through the glare of five o'clock light.

 

“I like the place you've got here. It's quiet.”

 

Changmin wonders if he should just go back to sleep because he's still in the grips of delicious fatigue, the kind that licks its lips, content, as consciousness flees and it gets a chance to come out and play.

 

“I'm Jaejoong.” He holds out a hand, one that is warm to the touch when Changmin grabs at it, closes his larger palm around thin fingers. When they let go he brings the hand in front of his eyes, uses it as a visor.

 

“Want to talk about it?” Jaejoong asks, brushing auburn bangs away from the eyes they hide with an impatient toss of his head.

 

“No.” Changmin says, looks at Jaejoong a little closer, notes the plush mouth, clear skin, face that could break hearts. Jaejoong stills, stares back, calm under the scrutiny. Changmin wants to tell him something, maybe that he's beautiful, but he thinks better of it and lays his head back down on the blanket. Weight shifts next to him and there are words in his ear, whispers of how it gets easier, promises of help. A hand, that same warmth, slips into his and Changmin allows the touch but can't help imagine it's someone else. The hands that wipe at the few tears that escape are rougher than he's used to, but they serve the same purpose.

 

“Miss them?”

 

Changmin nods in response to a stupid question, one that would have at least gotten an incredulous eyebrow raise, had he been feeling more like himself. He doesn't move for awhile, shuts his eyes but keeps sleep from crawling back.

 

The sun's half-lidded gaze is still filtering through tree tops when he sits up an hour or so later, hugs his knees to his chest and rests his chin there, looking out into a forest that surrounds on all sides.

 

“Where are we?” Jaejoong asks, without moving.

 

“Field behind my house,” he answers, sure that his voice doesn't catch on any of the words, a fumble that could unwind him. It can't happen.

 

“S'nice,” Jaejoong mutters, unfolds his limbs gracefully so he's standing up, looking down at Changmin again. When Changmin follows he's secretly happy to be considerably taller than Jaejoong.

 

“Where are we going?” They fall into a comfortable pace, shoes swishing in plastic tones against the grass. Jaejoong's smile, when it pulls at his lips, is more like a crack, a slip that's sadness and an apology.

 

“You're going to say goodbye.”

* * *

Jaejoong hangs back while Changmin watches his mother sit in what was his bedroom. She clenches the sheets of his bed between her fingers, nails digging in. She's not crying but short, quick breaths punctuate the silence that edges in, presses down on shoulders and mouths, the thick, choking kind that makes sound a fleeting memory. Changmin forgets himself. Sits next to her on sheets that still have fabric softener scent clinging to them, the one from the bottle with sunflowers on it. He tells her it's ok by rubbing the top of her hand, trying to get her to release the hold that must be cramping her fingers, but he somehow misses. His touch fails to connect, moves through instead (like passing through water and coming out dry) and so he stands up, whispers into the shell of her ear things he should have said when he was alive and looks at Jaejoong, who leads him away, past his father sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space.

 

Changmin can't touch him either.

 

He blinks and they're in his school, in front of an empty seat that has yet to be cleaned out. It's glaring, the shine of the fake wood, only emphasized by the other students who sit stock still, staring down at nothing. The teacher says his name, a murmur that quavers only slightly, and the class repeats after her, a collective acknowledgment. A collective goodbye. The boy who sits next to Changmin, or did, glances at him and for a split second hope jumps into his throat, but then his seatmate's gaze slides back down at his own clutched hands.

 

The day continues, people, places, held breath and silence, what life could have been. In the eyes of those he loves is the future, paths dotted with pain and joy and the bittersweet melody that is life, something he is no longer a part of. He'll carry those who mattered in himself, walk with them in memory, in who they are and who he was.

 

Changmin knows, when Jaejoong takes his hand and they slide to a new location (here and gone, arriving in less time than a heart takes to beat) that what he's leaving behind is himself, who he would be, the life that isn't his anymore. If Jaejoong wants tears, if he's expecting a breakdown, then Changmin is glad to disappoint him. He's standing back, holding the truth an arm's length away, detaching himself from what it is to be human because he's not anymore. Not really.

 

He stares into space until Jaejoong clears his throat, motions for him to follow down the hallway he'd brought them to, one that ends with a door. Fingers wrap around Changmin's wrist and pull, hard, so he fumbles forward a few steps, through the thin wood he's stopped in front of. He passes through easily, molecules melting through without resistance, though it feels like sandpaper is rubbing him down gently, scrub, not a scrape.

 

“You'll get used to it,” Jaejoong drops his arm, a Cheshire cat grin pulling up one of the corners of his generous mouth.

 

“Thanks for the warning.” His tone could wither the hardiest of plants, but the slight animosity is forgotten when he notices that the apartment is not empty.

 

“This,” Jaejoong say, motioning to the man on the couch, the one who stares at the television with glazed eyes, making it obvious that he's absorbing nothing, “is Yoochun.”

 

 

* * *

Jaejoong had told him to watch Yoochun.

 

Watch him do _what?_ The man, or boy, really—he didn't look more than a few years older than Changmin—had done _nothing_ in four hours. Had not eaten, drank, used the bathroom, or even scratched his nose. Changmin tries patience, but it doesn't fit, so he shrugs it off, paces back and forth in front of the tv, stopping every once in awhile to peer out through the glass door on the wall adjacent to Yoochun, one that opens to a small balcony. The sun is out.

 

“Wasting the day away, sitting here,” he grumbles, sitting on the cheap coffee table in front of the sofa. It's strewn with newspapers, headlines he doesn't read before planting himself heavily. He stares at Yoochun, at pale skin and hair that would be nice if it wasn't greasy and limp. The eyes catch him, though, intelligent, dark and bloodshot. Changmin looks down.

 

“What the fuck, Jaejoong?” Anger rises in his throat, clenches teeth. He's been abandoned, left out to sea by someone who was supposed to help him. _Unless this is hell_. _In which case, nice job._ The thought makes his eyes roll because he, fucking innocent Shim Changmin, has never done anything that would warrant eternal damnation. He's pretty sure if there is a God, He wouldn't care about the magazines a boy stashes under his bed. _Ooh._ Magazine his mother is probably going to find. His lips twist without mirth and he strangles the loss that creeps up behind him, moves to wrap its arms around his shoulders. He wishes his biggest worry was his mom finding his porn stash, but it doesn't matter now. Not when he's got a catatonic to watch.

 

“Go outside,” he says to Yoochun, inching forward until they're almost touching. “It's a nice day.”

 

No response.

 

“God, what a waste of time.” He rolls back, pulls his feet up. “You know,” he says, looking at Yoochun's unkempt hair, “You should really cut your hair if you're going the emo route.”

 

 

And that's when it happened.

 

Yoochun laughed.

 

* * *

 

Yoochun stands over the stove, hands on the counter, staring down a kettle of water as it boils.

 

“I know you can hear me.” Changmin settles next to the man, leans on the hard surface of the fridge. “The whole chuckle into a cough thing doesn't actually work.” Yoochun's hands tighten, muscles tense but he doesn't speak, doesn't acknowledge that anything is amiss in the seemingly empty apartment.

 

“This is pointless.” Changmin gets close, enough to speak directly into Yoochun's ear, doesn't notice that the other is shaking, almost imperceptibly, quakes the make his shoulders twitch.

  
“Why am I here? What is so important about a hermit?” Changmin's lip curls into a sneer. He wants to hurt, to wound something because those feelings are flooding up again. Yoochun's apartment only reminds him that he has no home anymore, has no one and doesn't know how to get back to his field, to the place where late afternoon stretches into infinity. He closes his eyes, sighs out air he isn't sure why he's breathing and turns away, takes a few steps and looks back, where Yoochun is now sitting on the floor, scrunched against the wall.

 

“You're not real,” he's whispering, over and over in a low, smooth voice, rich like espresso in the morning. “Not real, not real, not real.” Changmin doesn't know what to do because this emotion, this outpouring makes him uncomfortable. He can't deal with tears, reminders of grief. But he kneels, tells Yoochun that it's alright over and over until it's an amalgam of sounds that have no real meaning but need to be said, anyway.

 

“I'm so sorry,” Yoochun forces out between the muffled cries that shake his chest, making him jerk like a puppet to keep the noise in. The spasms turn the words harsh, attach razors to the edges.

 

“For what?” Changmin asks, drawn into the stranger, who's biting his fleshy bottom lip so hard Changmin worries that he'll cut straight through. But Yoochun doesn't give anything else, just points vague toward the living room.

 

“Table,” he manages before hiding his face behind piano hands, long fingers that taper elegantly, though the nails are torn and bitten down to the quick.

 

What Changmin finds there is the same copy of one newspaper, one that details how a life was saved at the cost of another, a selfless, brave act that would surely lighten the terrible weight of the death of a youth, of a boy of barely 18.

* * *

 

“What am I doing here?” Changmin hisses at Jaejoong, who decided to show up hours later, after Yoochun had gone back to ignoring him before shuffling off to what he assumed was a bedroom.

 

“You know who he is?” Jaejoong just asks, ignoring the question. Changmin nods, unable to say it. “He is your task.”

 

“Task?”

 

“Your job is to save him.”

 

“I thought I already had.”

 

“Now is when it counts.”

 

Changmin vaults forward, entwines his hands in Jaejoong's shirt and pushes him against the wall where he stands and is distracted for a moment in how comforting it is to be able to touch someone else, to feel solid.

 

“You're walking me in circles.” He's close to Jaejoong, bigger than him, but he feels that somehow, now, that doesn't actually matter. “What is this? Why aren't I in Heaven or Hell or just wandering around as a ghost? What's the point of this?” He's unsteady, spinning out under circumstances that he can't make sense of, can't balance like a chemistry equation. His legs turn to jell-o, tremors shooting through nerves because he _just wants some fucking answers_ and suddenly it's Jaejoong who's holding him up, supporting him with deceptive strength he didn't expect from the other's lithe body.

 

“When you know,” Jaejoong's face remains impassive, a carefully crafted facade that speaks of experience—maybe too much. “I'll find you. Until then, it's your job to stay with Yoochun.” He looks up into Changmin's eyes, pleading.

 

“Don't take this lightly,” he says, relaxing his grip around Changmin's waist, and then is gone, melts into the air of the sparse apartment. It's uncomfortable, the space, a place with glaring white walls that lack any personal touches and a few pieces of threadbare furniture. He swallows once, twice. _Need a distraction._ His eyes are drawn to the closed door behind which Yoochun's privacy lies, a personal boundary that Changmin hates to tread over, but being alone isn't an option right now.

 

He rubs his arms when he reaches the other side of the door, skin itching from the wood. The room is dark, calm because it at least feels somewhat like a home, has an overstuffed bed where Yoochun is sprawled under a thick blanket, breaths deep enough to tell Changmin he's asleep. He sits on the floor, hooks his arms around knees and lets himself go too, grateful that he can still sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Changmin learns that Yoochun has a routine. Every morning, he gets up, a fields a call from someone that must be a parent the way Yoochun answers, obligatory affirmatives and mm—hmms, and sometimes the voice comes out of the receiver a little loud, so the question, always the same one, can be heard.

 

_Are you alright?_

 

He imagines that Yoochun would be semi convincing if it weren't for the small details most don't look closely enough to catch. The way his hands shake when he looks in the mirror for a bit too long, the way he can lapse into stillness that's broken when Changmin shuffles by or coughs quietly. Yoochun does leave the apartment, though, because he is a student (double-majoring in creative writing and music theory, if the books by the bed are to be trusted), but his phone never rings, and he comes back immediately after classes.

 

“Why don't you have friends?” Changmin wonders one day when Yoochun plants himself in front of the television after toying with a few exercises from his writing textbook. When the other boy stiffens, he realizes he's spoken aloud. But more importantly, Yoochun glances toward him out of the corner of his eye and the dark irises flick back to the tv immediately after, but he'd looked.

 

“I sing Wonder Girls at the top of my lungs for hours on end and _this_ is what catches your attention?”

 


	2. Cold Comfort for Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Changmin dies just before his 18th birthday. But life isn't over yet, not for him, or the person he's assigned to watch over, Park Yoochun.

Title: Cold Comfort for Change  
Pairing: Changmin/Yoochun  
Rating:PG  
Author: Radioheading  
Genre: Romance, supernatural, angst  
Chapters: Part 2/2  
Summary: Changmin dies just before his 18th birthday. But life isn't over yet, not for him, or the person he's assigned to watch over, Park Yoochun.

  
  
  
 

“Look at me,” Changmin says, tone maybe a little too harsh, enough so that Yoochun's eyes slide shut, lashes skimming (feather light, a butterfly kiss) the pale almost-blue skin underneath. “Yoochun. Please.”

 

A slight jerk of the head, hands that clench on bony knees, nails digging through fabric is all Changmin gets. “Yoochun,” voice soft now, syllables catching, sticking in his throat from the loneliness that's starting to eat him from the inside out, he tries to reach out to the man he's supposed to help. Somehow.

 

“Please, Yoochun. I—you don't know how this is for me. No one but you can see me. My mother—she couldn't—I'm alone except for you,” It's true, and he knows it. Changmin has ceased to exist save in the minds of those he knew, but even then he's relegated to the periphery, the pile of memory drenched in melancholy, left to rot because it hurts too much to bring it back, to think of things that used to be.

 

“And I know you think I'm mad at you, that I think it's your fault, but I don't. And....and it didn't hurt, not really. Not like you would think. I can't take away your guilt because I don't think you can give it up right now, but if you want to make it up, then help me.” If there are warm pools clouding his vision, Changmin pays them no mind. Detachment, the saving grace of numbness gives way, fast as a river rushing up sandy banks. He'd never thought it was possible to mourn for oneself.

 

“What happened was—It sucks. And I'm fucking _angry_ , because I don't get to grow up or fall in love. But not at you.” God, the crying. It wrenches something, stabs at his pride but not letting go would be worse because the pain in his throat, the kind that echoes through the body until it's released has him its grip. “Everyone looked through me. Everyone I knew. But you don't have to. So don't.” 

 

He doesn't see Yoochun's face because that stubborn masculinity that's been cultivated in him, the kind that lessens with age and experience and the wisdom of others keeps his gaze glued to the floor, where the liquid that leaks from his splashes down, exploding into fragments upon impact, refractions of light left to dissolve into nothing. If he had been looking up, if he'd given in to the vulnerability that courses through him, he'd have seen the twist of Yoochun's lips, the way the pink skin was pulled taught into a grimace, a guard to keep from letting out the regrets and pain that have built behind his eyes, too.

 

“You promise it didn't hurt?” His voice is low, graveled from lack of use and that thick cloying stretch of vocal chords paralyzed with emotion.

 

“Yeah,” Changmin looks up and thinks maybe he sees a flame of something in Yoochun, but it could just be the glow from the setting sun.

 

* * *

 

He's sitting on the couch one day, waiting for Yoochun to come home from class (Wednesday: Composition and Structure of 18 th Century British Literature. Changmin had shuddered at the thought.) when Jaejoong shows up unannounced—though, really, how could he ask to come over? Call?--Changmin laughs at the thought, gets an inkling of pleasure for the first time in awhile. Jaejoong's casual, sits beside him heavily. 

 

“How's it going?'

 

“He's talking to me now.”

 

“About anything important?”

 

“No.” There are pleasantries exchanged, small talk about television and classes and the new story Yoochun's working on, but the openness, the glimpse inside of the other man Changmin had caught those few days earlier had lapsed into an awkward boundary, a subject neither broke up.

 

“Try.” Jaejoong tips his head back, looks up at nothing or the ceiling and once again, Changmin is struck by his appearance, by the luck and genetics that had to have come together to form Jaejoong, to craft the reflection of starlight and calm waters into a person. Jaejoong notices the staring, turns his head so they look at each other, so Changmin can look into him and see that it's not all frivolity and simplicity in the depths that mirror his own face.

 

“I am.” It's sort of the truth, anyway. He tries to talk about what happened, tries to make Yoochun put into words the heaviness that pulls at his thin shoulders, that keeps him up at night and makes him cry out in his sleep sometimes.

 

“Harder,” It's whispered, carries urgency that tightens in Changmin's stomach like a fist. The door opens, Yoochun shuffles in and Jaejoong is gone, if he was ever there to begin with.

 

“You alright?” Yoochun mumbles between prone lips as he shucks off his jacket, drops his bag by the door. He's looking toward Changmin but avoids eye contact, preferring to stare into the space above his head, or next to his body.

 

“Yeah.”

 

But Yoochun surprises him today, takes a deep breath and trains his eyes on Changmin's, walks to the couch and sits next to him without breaking the contact.

 

“I think,” he says, slowly, testing the sounds of the words as if he were dipping a toe in a pool, testing out the temperature, “that you might not be a figment of my imagination.” He tucks a lock of newly shorn hair behind his ear

 

“No shit,” Changmin replies, but there's no hostility in the words because this is the longest sentence Yoochun has ever directed at him. The other man's lips quirk at Changmin's sarcasm, though the expression seems almost precarious on his usually serious features, as if at any moment the smile could collapse on itself, having realized the error of a marred poker face.

 

“And how did this brilliant realization come about?”

 

A flush rises to the surface of Yoochun's skin; he rubs at the back of his neck.

 

“You mentioned your house—the blue shutters and a red door, right?”

 

“So?”

 

“Well, I couldn't have known that. I've never been to your hometown. So I used Google Earth and a phone book, and there it was.”

 

“Stalker,” Changmin says, but he can't help but smile because maybe, _finally_ , he's getting somewhere.

 

 

* * *

 

Changmin finds out he can touch Changmin by accident. It's late one night and he's restless, twitchy with an electricity that prods at him, that makes him want to move and though he can't actually go anywhere, frustration is scratching at him like a dog at the door. He cracks knuckles, his back, paces but the antsy feeling isn't going away. _God, why doesn't something just happen?_ Yoochun's room reaches out, dares him not to look, to want to cross its threshold. _He's asleep,_ Changmin reasons. _He won't know._

 

He does this more than he'd like to admit, watches Yoochun in the dark when the cool glow of the moon illuminates his pallid skin, makes it glow with life that isn't there in the day. He sits by the bed, a few feet away and just watches. Yoochun's face is relaxed, calm, the usual tension held in his forehead is gone, replaced with something softer, a sweet expression that makes him look younger. It doesn't last, though. Brows crease, mouth pulls tight and he's muttering, murmuring 'no,' punctuated with gibberish that Changmin doesn't need to understand to know the other man is scared, that whatever he's seeing isn't remotely pleasant. He inches closer as Yoochun cocoons himself in blankets, rolling, stretching away from whatever it is that lurks in the shadows, that's chasing him into places he doesn't want to go.

 

When Yoochun moans, Changmin isn't thinking of how illogical his actions are because they're instinct, things he's done so many times in his life that they've followed him here, stayed part of him. He reaches out, touches Yoochun's hand and forehead, rubs the damp hair back, soothing, like his mother had done for him so many times. At first it doesn't hit him because he still thinks like he did when he existed, still expects his touch to be grounded in physics and gravity and all the rules that set the world straight. But when Yoochun sighs, says 'Changmin,' wistfully, pushes into the pressure of the other's digits a little, he starts so hard he almost falls off the bed. But Yoochun mewls a little, sighs when he stops stroking heated skin, so he keeps going until he's sure that whatever was out to get Yoochun is gone.

 

Days pass and Changmin wants to tell Yoochun but every time he tries the words hurry back down his throat because he feels guilty about how he found out, knows he's not good enough of an actor to bump into him, to make the realization seem like an accident. And Yoochun's smiling more now, talking to him about assignments and professors with a shy sort of admiration that draws Changmin in because everything Yoochun does is wrapped in a sort of gentle knowledge, an old-soul sensibility that contrasts starkly with his own bitten-off judgments, the snap decisions he's always relied upon. When he's not paying attention, Changmin looks at him, watches his face as he writes or composes (pulls a keyboard out from under the bed sheepishly) and thinks of ballads, of slow songs and lazy mornings of pale lemon light, the kind that holds the chill of the air close until midday.

 

“You're not eating enough,” Changmin says one day when Yoochun's munching on toast and black coffee, taking drags from a cigarette between sips.

 

“I'm fine, mom,” Yoochun rolls his eyes, replies with life in his words and Changmin is glad, even as he's being made fun of. “I am only one person.”

 

Changmin just nods, looks sideways at the toast and sighs about how much he misses eating.

 

“Do you feel anything?” Yoochun asks suddenly. “Like, pain or phantom hunger?”

 

“Phantom hunger?” He snorts. “No, I don't feel anything, really. Everything's pretty numb, except when I—” _Shit._ He'd let his mouth wander, swerve too close to the truth. Maybe Yoochun would leave it alone.

 

“When you...?”

 

Maybe not.

 

“When I...” Changmin slides his hand across the table, cover's Yoochun's hand in his own (after which Yoochun promptly drops his toast in his lap) and the now familiar rush travels up his arm, a tingle of something he hasn't ever felt before but wants more of every time he touches Yoochun.

 

“How long have you...” Yoochun's eyes are wide, but he makes no move to back away.

 

“A week,” Changmin keeps his gaze steady, doesn't look away. “You were having a nightmare and I—I just wanted to help.” _It's true,_ Changmin rationalizes. _That's when it started._ He'd just leave out the fact that every night after that he'd gone back, thrilled digits up and down skin until Yoochun smiled in his sleep.

 

“Oh,” Yoochun says, turning Changmin's hand over, touching the long fingers one by one. “Cool.”

 

* * *

 

It's another nightmare that draws Changmin back to Yoochun's room. He'd held back, left the other man alone at night because now it felt wrong, strange to watch him sleep. But the moans that grate through Yoochun's throat, the gasps that can't calm him spur Changmin into movement, into the inevitable. But when he enters the room, peers through the dark, he sees Yoochun sitting up in bed, waiting.

 

“What's—is everything alright?” He asks, the look in Yoochun's eyes setting him on edge.

 

“Yeah,” he looks down, then back at Changmin. “Sit with me?”

 

It's an easy acquiescence, a bit awkward when he settles next to Yoochun, but the close proximity of his skin, his warmth, is comforting.

 

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” Yoochun isn't flirting. His brow is furrowed, hands clamped on the sheets that cover his legs.

 

“W—what?” _At two in the morning, months after I've died, this is somehow important?_ “No,” he says, finally. “Or, I mean, yeah, I've kissed a girl, but I've never had the kind that everyone talks about, you know? The kind that leaves you breathless.”

 

“Mm,” Yoochun murmurs, looking away. “I'm going to tell you a story, alright? And you can't say anything until I'm done.”

 

“O—ok.” _What's this about?_

 

“That day, that day that you—when you saved my life, I was on my way to a pharmacy.” His hands clasp around each other, creating circular cages, a tight hold. “I'd already been to three. Because—because that day I was going to do something, something that I—But then that guy tried to rob me and I thought, well, I guess that's one less trip to make. He looked crazy, you know? Like he was going to kill me whether or not I gave him my wallet.” Yoochun's words come a little slower now, rolling slippery like a mudslide down a mountain. “His eyes were just, they looked dead, you know? But I was _relieved_. And then you—when you tried to help and he—”

 

Yoochun keeps speaking, though he needn't because the scene plays out again for Changmin, memory pulling back the curtains, bringing everything close, to the light. He'd seen a struggle, a large man attacking a smaller one, had gone to help, had shouted for the thief to stop, don't hurt him—here, take this money too, go get something to eat—and then he was on his knees, cold. There were arms around him, hands that held his, though the grip was slick, sticky with the life that drained out of torn skin and arteries, a hole that opened his body to let his soul slip away.

 

“I couldn't get your blood off me,” He hears the words, looks at Yoochun whose eyes shine, blink tracks of sorrow down his face. “It should have been me that day. Should have been me.” He's shaking now, crying hard but Changmin can't force words up, can't find a voice so he does what he's needed to for the awhile now, pushes himself flat against Yoochun, lips touching, insistent, hands in the other's hair, curling around soft strands. He's kissing a mannequin for a moment, a static body that's suddenly pressing back, pulling him closer until there's no space between their chests, one heart beating between them, echoing in Changmin's ribs, pounding a beat so loud that it almost makes him feel alive again. His cheeks are wet but the salty liquid is a part of Yoochun, and he'll take anything of his greedily then ask for more.

 

He slides his tongue past his own lips into an already open, permissive mouth where he discovers Yoochun tastes like wintergreen and gin, something he'd seen him sip more than once, hand curled around a sweating glass. They explore, move in and out and around each other and it's happiness but also an ache because no matter how fast they run, reality is never far behind. Yoochun just pulls him closer, though, and he's glad that breathing is more of a habit than a necessity. They separate, eventually, though arms and legs stay entwined and Yoochun whispers a word that Changmin is more than happy to agree to: _Stay._

 

* * *

 

“Why?” Changmin asks, acid coiling in veins that are pressed tight, ready to spring at the slightest pressure. “ Why does this happen when I'm _dead_?”

 

“Because that's just how it works,” Jaejoong says, leaning over the railing of the balcony, face turned up to the sun. “It's a second chance.”

 

“For what? 'Hey, mom and dad, I know you want me to get married and have kids, but I'm sort of involved with this guy you can't see?” Changmin's lip curls. “It's cruel. How can he have a normal life if I'm haunting him?”

 

“You're giving him a normal life.” Jaejoong's face falls a little, but he doesn't stop. “We all have people we're supposed to be with. But we get separated by time, by life and death. We give them hope because they know we're waiting for them. We'll be there.”

 

“Waiting?” Changmin is smart, he catches semantics. The word means something, is important.

 

“It's time to say your last goodbye,” Jaejoong whispers, gripping Changmin's shoulder tight, trying to communicate empathy with a squeeze.

 

When Yoochun comes home, he's happy. He's been out with a friend, a guy from class who plays guitar like it's sex and can quote entire scenes from countless films. He's nice, Yoochun tells Changmin. He's going to work on Yoochun's final composition.

 

“That's great,” Changmin whispers, pulling him into a hug, dropping his head down so it rests on Yoochun's pronounced clavicle.

 

“What's wrong?” The words slide down his neck, hot from the breath of the man in his arms.

 

“I—I've got to go,” Changmin says, then cups Yoochun's face so he can kiss him with everything he has, with yearning and need and a softness that's unexpected, gentle.

 

“No,” Yoochun whispers, breaks the kiss, tugs at Changmin's collar. “No, no I just got you—it's too soon—”

 

“I know. I know.” He bites his lip, looks anywhere and everywhere as long as it's not Yoochun. “But I—I love you. And I will wait for you. For however long it takes, I will be waiting.” And then there's something pulling at him, something that spreads lightness through him, anesthetic so he can't feel Yoochun anymore but he kisses him again and again, in between words and soft noises that sound like pain.

 

“I love you too,” Yoochun says, though by the time it come out, he's in an empty room.

 

* * *

 

Changmin is in his field again and the peace of the surroundings fills him, lifts him to a joy he isn't sure can be real because it's too intense, too much for one person to feel. But he breathes out, in and out and lets go.

 

Time isn't steady where he is, but soon enough he learns he can hear the thoughts Yoochun addresses to him. Sometimes they're quick, unconscious, but they get longer at night, just before he drops off into sleep. Changmin keeps the most important one, _You saved my life, Changmin, twice. I'm waiting for you too,_ next to his heart. Jaejoong passes by from time to time and now Changmin sees what he had been missing, what the coldness surrounding the other man is.

 

“Yours will come soon,” he says, somehow sure of his words. Jaejoong offers a smile, a congratulations on a job well done, and it makes Changmin ask what would have happened if he'd failed.

 

“Suicide,” is the answer, a shiver off Jaejoong's lips. “They're the hardest to rescue. Their minds trap them, keep them from going anywhere.”

 

Changmin lays back, forgets everything around him and starts to swim through eternity in long, even strokes, a steady pattern that is comfortable. He helps others, guides them through their charges and is filled with their triumphs.

It's a quiet moment, the sleepy afternoon kind, when he falls back into the world of the living, when he's suddenly standing on a street corner staring down at a man who looks to be about thirty. The man clutches his heart as it beats out of time, tripping over a rip that had gone unnoticed until now, when one of the chambers fail. The man's face is covered by his hair but Changmin bends down to him, surprised when he isn't rebuffed by the flesh, when he doesn't just slide through. He swipes a hand across the man's forehead, sees the eyes he could never forget, the face that he's held inside since he left it.

 

“Yoochun,” he gasps, pulling the man into his lap. He stares up at Changmin, disbelief and pain mingling, his chest tight, locked in a vice. Changmin doesn't know how but he feels what Yoochun does, rocks with the waves that cast him into a sea of torture, of fear. The whites of Yoochun's wide eyes show but his body sags a little, heavy on Changmin's legs. Yoochun's breaths quicken, turn into gasps that are wet in the back of his throat. He's twitching, system firing impulses to dying synapses and Changmin can't do anything about it but watch, grip harder, pull Yoochun flush up against him, encircling a thin frame. He knows he's shaking too, muttering combinations of reassurance, _It's ok, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here._ Yoochun pulls back a bit, throat gurgling, fight still in his eyes.

 

_Just let go,_ Changmin says,  _Let it all go._ And then, time stops and they're just looking at each other, a crystalline moment that shatters when Yoochun goes limp in his arms, eyes open, glazed. He doesn't let go, can't, places a kiss on both of his eyelids before letting himself slip away too. 

 

* * *

 

Before Yoochun opens his eyes, he hears the ocean, the heavy crash of waves moving forward and pulling back. The air is warm, dry, and he is on his back, lying with his hands under his head. There's someone next to him, someone who draws closer, traces a finger up his jaw, tucks hair behind his ear. The man who leans over him blocks out the sun so it forms a halo around his head, a starburst straight from a Greek painting.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Changmin replies, a soft, shy smile pulling at his lips.

 

“Is this real?” Yoochun doesn't want to move, doesn't want to touch for fear of waking up, of losing Changmin again.

 

“Yeah,” Changmin replies, and then they're kissing, rolling in sand until it drops off into water that's just a little cooler than a bath.

 

“Missed you,” Yoochun says, mouth on Changmin's neck, laving his skin, drawing the other's taste into his own mouth, filling himself to make up for the years when he'd been unable to see him, to touch him despite the desperate need to, the constant itch that had buried itself in every part of his body.

 

Their touches gain steam, move quickly, each needing to taste the other, to explore bodies with wonder, with the knowledge that this is completely  _right._

 

Yoochun shows his world, gets taken back to Changmin's and then they branch out, traveling through the spirals, of interconnected , meeting others along the way. Wherever they are now is like Earth, except here no matter what language one speaks, everyone understands.

 

He meets Jaejoong, a man whose silence he understands because he almost let the same stillness catch him, pull him under. They don't talk much, don't need to talk because words matter less here. They're in Changmin's field one day, sitting on a blanket where he's curled near his lover, stroking his arm lightly, still taken aback by the blooming feeling that rushes through him when he least expects it, when the sureness of Changmin's love takes him by surprise. Jaejoong fiddles with grass, slicing and entwining the blades with his nails to make a chain. Something is different, though, because when Jaejoong doesn't think anyone's looking he smiles a private smile, bites his lip to keep it at bay but it doesn't actually help because whatever's inside pours through his skin, lights up and eliminates the chill that had stayed close, allowed numbness to sustain him through the years of waiting.

 

“What's up, Jaejoong?” His words release a smile, a radiant sight that, for once, Jaejoong doesn't cover with an embarrassed hand. Yoochun thinks he should do it all the time, should never hide again.

 

“I got my assignment.”

 

Yoochun's eyes fill, Changmin touches his hand, and they all stare into the infinity of Changmin's dusk.

 


End file.
